Circuit of the Americas Formula 1 Race Track
 

[QUOTE]After a three-year hiatus, Formula One is coming back to the states in 2012 and the city that's been chosen to host the World Cup of Motorsports? Austin, Texas. Yes, Austin.

According to the release from F1, the race will be held in the city from 2012 to 2021, and since Austin doesn't have a race track, a facility will be purpose-built to host the events. Get all the details in the press release after the jump.

[Source: Formula One | Image: Corbis/Getty]/QUOTE]
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/25/b...texas-in-2012/

Very cool! Just read the story in the Statesman a few moments ago...I was wondering where the other F1 racing locations were in the US... guess that answers my question. Puts us in rather select company! Where would they race? Purpose-built facility or on existing roads?

EDIT: Your article notes a purpose-built facility. Wonder where?

Statesman Article

... regarding location, it would seem most logical to place along or near the 130 corridor, given available land, proximity to air and ground (highway, out-of-town) transportation, etc. Of course, the eastern fringes of Austin hardly resemble the Hill Country, as the press releases tout :)

Wow, this is incredible!!! HUGE!!! Hopefully NASCAR will run an event here too.
Now we truly need more Hotel rooms. First I heard of this. Mayor and Gov kept this quiet for a while. Wherever they put the track, it will need to be directly off I35 or 130. These are usually up to week long events which includes promotions, qualifying and the actual race. The track could also be used by tire companies for testing their tires, road rallies, 24 hour races, car companies test driving their vehicles, motorcycle racing and more. OK I'm dreaming, but this is a huge big league victory for Austin.

This is HUGE. I'm so excited.

This can't be valid...wish it was...this is the most prestigious sport in the world....ton's of $$$$$...It would make Austin a world destination...
Here's the problem. F-1 flys their cars and support equipment in modified Boeing 747's,...ABIA can't handle 747's..

With a runway nearly 12,000' long, they have more than enough pavement to handle a 747 landing or, more relevantly, taking off.

Now, I'm unaware of any gates configured to "handle" a 747 on a jetbridge, but they wouldn't need those anyway.

The airport is a non-issue. Mueller certainly would've been.

Is this a typical configuration of a Formula-1 track?

http://www.autodromodoalgarve.com/index

http://www.monchiqueportugal.info/images/circuit2.jpg

http://www.monchiqueportugal.info/Ne...ace_Track.html
http://www.autodromodoalgarve.com/index

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlin...0/5/10824.html

Its official. this is HUGE... much bigger than a super bowl event. this is like holding the olympics in austin

Time to start building hotels... lots of em.

Regarding the airport... that's funny. For a while ABIA had the longest runway in TX and was an alternate land site for the shuttle. Remember it was a military base first... Any plane can take off and land with ease on the west runway. 13K feet long. It was 14K feet long when the military ran it. DFW's strips were 10K feet but about 10 years ago they extended almost all of them to 12K feet. Jet bridgets are on hydrolics... they can adapt to 747s etc no problemo.

I watched a 747 with the space shuttle strapped to its back land on ABIA's longest runway (when it was Berstrom AFB). Not sure why you don't think they can handle 747's with a few open wheeled vehicles and equipment.
They can handle the unloading at the cargo area using fork trucks.

I hope this means add ons to ABIA. :yes:

Algarve hasn't held an F1 race, but it is a similar facility. Bahrain, Circuit Losail in Qatar, Shanghai International Circuit are ones built in recent years, Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi was opened up last year.

Hopefully it comes through, then I won't have to travel too far to. We went to Indy in 2007 and had been looking at going to a race next year somewhere.

This is exactly what I have been wanting to come here for years. That is just awesome! Huge win for Austin! Now it just better happen.

when I read about this yesterday I literally couldn't stop laughing. Having composed myself, here's what I have to say about this, ladies: there is zero chance that this will happen; no one will spend $250 million plus on this because - think about it - no one can. And for those of you who've lived in Europe or are otherwise familiar with F1, you know about Bernie Ecclestone and I don't need to say anything about him. Anyway, that 60 room tower over the Robertsons' old building on Congress has a better chance of happening than an F1 track (and that's saying something).

Here's the problem with your statement. One, Formula 1 would not be announcing this in the first place if they didn't intend to do it. They signed a contract with the city of Austin. Two, This has been in the works for awhile now albiet secretive. I got off the phone just this morning with a friend in San Jose, who has connections with people who have known about this deal for months and he knew this announcenment was comming even though he didn't bother to tell me ealier which I chewed him out for it lol. Three..., im not sure where your getting that $250 million from because they havn't stated the ammount that this would cost. The $250 million is the ammount of money that will be pumped into the Austin economy because of this event. You remind me of all those who said the Austonian would never be built lol.

This is earth shattering news for the city of Austin. Not only will we be hosting a true international event, but there will be thousands of new jobs that will be created here because of Formula 1. Not just the event itself, but the residual affect. Hotels will be sprining up downtown like weeds (hopefully tall ones), not to mention other parts of the city. The track will be used year around as well, not just for this one event. Companies that are researching alternative fuels will set up shop here to use the track for testing. This is as big as they come for any city and this will propel our city like a slingshot over the next several years. You think our population was going to grow before, now with this announcment you can bank on a pretty big population growth spurt that most likely would have never happend if this event never came here.

I know some of you hate roads, but with all of this "world-class growth," what can be done to improve Austin's infrastructure to handle the growth ?

From San Marcos, I've found that it often takes as long to travel 25 miles north to Austin as it does to travel 50 miles south to San Antonio.
San Antonio is also a large, fast-growing city, but somehow I never see the traffic jammed up like I do so often on Austin's stretch of I-35.

What is I-35 going to be like when you host world-class events like Formula One ?

It may, the State of Texas is providing 25,000,000 a year to host the event in Austin for a ten-year run. If the event happens, we - Texas - are open to providing more dinero.

The Statesman article provided that building the track could cost $250 million. Because many other things necessary for this event would cost many additional millions of dollars, I stated that this would cost more than $250 million.

I suppose it's possible that the event would, as you say, pump $250 million into the local economy. That would be wonderful, if true. The problem would be in raising that much start up capital during perhaps the worst year for private and public finance in the history of private and public finance.

Everyone is broke. Which leads me to my next post . . .

The state is having to make staggering budgetary decisions on things like education, health care, and infrastructure because it is running a 10 digit deficit. Therefore, you can be certain that legislators will give Austin $25 million every year to help a sport that most of them, when they learn of its existence, will find vaguely Belgian. This will happen, of course, the instant a Laredo parking lot freezes-over in July.

25 million is really NOT that much money. To put this in perspective: The direct connectors at the 183 and 290 interchange are costing around 107 million.